The 14th edition of the Franco-Arab Film Festival (FFFA) in Noisy-le-Sec will spotlight the dynamism of Tunisian cinema from November 7 to 16, 2025. Announced Monday, the festival’s guest of honour will be Franco-Tunisian director Hind Meddeb, who will serve as patron alongside the event’s longstanding honorary president, the acclaimed filmmaker Costa-Gavras.
Founded in 2012, the FFFA has established itself as a crucial platform for dialogue between the two shores of the Mediterranean. This year’s focus on Tunisia promises to showcase a generation of filmmakers offering a free and critical look at post-revolution society.
The selection of Hind Meddeb as patron is a natural fit for the festival’s mission. A filmmaker known for her engaged documentaries like “Electro Chaâbi” and “Paris Stalingrad,” Meddeb gives voice to the marginalized, from Tunisian youth to Sudanese exiles. Her own background, as the daughter of a Tunisian father and an Algerian-Moroccan mother raised in France, embodies the cultural plurality the festival celebrates.
“I have always identified with this festival’s programming, being a Franco-Arab child myself,” Meddeb stated. “It holds up a mirror to us and does us good.”
The festival will feature three of Meddeb’s films and a special preview on October 24 of Erige Sehiri’s “Promis le ciel,” signalling a programme dedicated to auteur cinema rooted in reality and driven by strong female voices.
Against a backdrop of geopolitical tension in the Mediterranean, the FFFA reaffirms the role of cinema as a space for connection. For Meddeb, this mission is vital: “When war and authoritarianism proliferate everywhere, all we have left is art… Let’s continue to create to stay alive so that, even where everything is collapsing, dialogue endures.”
TunisianMonitorOnline (NejiMed)
